Collecting the lives of female political leaders

We invited our intern Madeline Pentland, from Australian Catholic University’s History Honours program, to tell us about her Honours research. Madeline is writing a 15,000-word thesis that includes an archival assessment of former Australian Democrats leader, Natasha Stott Despoja, as a case study for how modern Australian women political leaders can participate in framing their own histories. Here’s what Madeline has to say about her research:

“When you think about a history of Australian political leaders, you may cast your mind back to the first prime minister or head of state and most likely they’ll be men. However, there’s been a recent shift that makes use of the growing wave of parliamentarian women and political leaders in Australia and puts them at the forefront of their own histories, through historians of the likes of Marilyn Lake, Marian Sawer, Patricia Grimshaw, Nikki Henningham and much more. I’m wholeheartedly riding this wave, analysing how theory has been realised through a case study of Natasha Stott Despoja.

From the start, Natasha was the most interesting case to me. Natasha was in a short-lived parliamentary leadership position at a young age and has continued her advocacy for women and girls through the United Nations, all while collaborating in media interviews, scholarly publishing, oral histories, museum exhibitions, to preserve her political history. These are career titles and historical methods that not many parliamentarian women have to their name, so I am interested in how and why this happened for Natasha. I’m currently in the middle of completing interviews with oral historians and museum curators, and it’s shaping up to be an interesting discussion of women’s political leadership through historical methods.

This internship couldn’t have come at a better time, as I’m able to relate the way History At Work uses significance assessments on larger collections to how I look at Natasha’s display at the Changemakers exhibition at Museum of Australian Democracy in Canberra, and the Women and Leadership Project from 2012.”

Madeline is one of two interns from Australian Catholic University to join History At Work this semester. We look forward to hearing about Ella’s thesis in our next issue.

Doc Martens owned by Natasha Stott Despoja & 16 Private Member's Bills tabled by her on display at Changemakers exhibition, Museum of Australian Democracy

Source: Madeline Pentland_2022

Senator NSD with more than 200,000 people in Melbourne protesting against Australian involvement in the war in Iraq, 2003, Regis Martin/Getty Images